8mm
Posted on 08/07/2007 4:45:49 PM PDT by wagglebee
Des Moines, IA (LifeNews.com) -- Rudy Giuliani is having a hard time capturing the support of a large segment of Republican voters in Iowa because he strongly supports legalized abortion. To offset his strident view, Giuliani pledges to promote adoption and moderate his stance so he can gain enough support to do well in the first presidential battleground.
Giuliani said on Monday in an Iowa campaign swing that he wanted to promote common ground on the issue of abortion and that he can do so with pro-life advocates by touting adoption.
"The common ground is almost all people agree that we should reduce the number of abortions as much as we can consistent with respecting people's rights and keeping government out of that kind of decision making," he explained.
"One of the ways we can do that is by increasing adoptions and making that information available so that someone has the full information and then can make a decision," Giuliani said.
“I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions and protect the quality of life of our children,” Giuliani explained.
Giuliani also said he would make permanent a $10,000 tax credit for adoption expenses.
Tom McClusky, vice president of the Family Research Council's legislative branch, told Congressional Quarterly the adoption plan "looks good on paper" but he's skeptical of Giuliani's commitment to reducing abortions.
“Rudy Giuliani was great for New York as a mayor [but] I question as a president if he would uphold the same standards that have become expected from Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan," he said.
“In the past, when he said he was trying to promote adoption, he gave money to Planned Parenthood,” McClusky said.
Giuliani has frequently trumpeted his position in favor of promoting adoptions, though statistics show he didn't necessary do much to promote them as mayor.
The mayor has previously claimed that adoptions went up 67 percent during his mayoral tenure, but the nonpartisan political watchdog Web site FactCheck said that number is inflated and put the rise at only 17 percent during his terms in office.
Although there were more adoptions during Giuliani's time in office than that of his predecessor David Dinkins, adoptions under Giuliani decreased five out of his final six years in office.
FRC's McClusky told CQ in response to the adoption numbers, “I think he’s taking credit for something he had very little to do with. Abortion did go down in the 90s, and it’s not really through any of his efforts.”
And I would bet that over 90% of these adoptions are overseas.
Pro-Life Ping
Ghouliani knows the election is all over but the voting. His backers just want to control the GOP to change from a conservative party to a liberal party.
“common ground?” What a canard. It is not in the interest of the pro aborts to promote adoption.
Yes, I seem to recall one of the now departed FReeper leftists complaining a few months back that conservatives have "had their foot on the neck" of the GOP for too long.
Good observation. This is how the neo-con liberal Rockefeller Republicans took over the GOP.
And they damn near succeeded in destroying the GOP. Had Reagan not won in 1980, I don't thing the GOP would have made it.
I think Rudy is starting to see the writing on the wall, and there's a sense of panic going on in his campaign. Otherwise, why would he need to bring this up? He already said back in the spring that he's firmly pro-abortion and is going to let the chips fall.
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Giuliani is a complete fraud. He's drawing a false connection between two separate issues. The adoptions that went up temporarily in NYC were mostly foster-care-to-adoption older kids -- which is great, but it has absolutely zero to do with people making an adoption plan for their infants instead of aborting them.
Tax credits for adoption expenses are also a great thing -- but again, they have zero to do with increasing the number of women who choose adoption for their babies instead of abortion. It's the parents who are adopting who pay all the expenses, and receive the tax deduction; birthmothers already pay nothing. Increasing the number of people who can afford to adopt does nothing to solve the abortion problem, since waiting lists for infants is already years long.
So, either Giuliani is completely clueless about the situation, or he's cynically linking two unrelated issues in an effort to obscure his record. Either way, he's a fraud.
But you see, Rudy, there is no common ground because there is no common starting place.
One side believes in a smooth, gradual, dynamic continuum that begins at conception.
The other believes in a static Platonic model with sudden artificial spikes and steps in development - a sort of "magical" view of reality.
The first view leads to protection of all human life, in accordance with the nature of scientifically observed reality.
The second view would subject the law to its static human-imposed plateaus, with a sudden spike in legal protection at some arbitrary developmental point.
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